


No Other Name But Mine

by beans_on_toast



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fey!Joe, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Hurt Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Healing Kisses, Mild Smut, Witch!Nicky, do not anger your sentient house nicolo, magical healing, sentient house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beans_on_toast/pseuds/beans_on_toast
Summary: One must watch their words around the Fey. The magical beings from beyond the barrier speak in riddles and half truths and they can covet every little secret they can pry from you. Giving the Fey any indication of your feelings, thoughts or even your true name, gives them power over you.Nicoknowsthis. His Grandmother taught him to protect himself from the wily creatures: he lays his wards, keeps himself to himself, and is in complete control. His acquaintance with the charming, amusing, (infuriatinglybeautiful) Fey guard Yusuf is just that, an acquaintance. Sure, they have grown close over the years but Nico has always kept his professional distance, the incident at last midwinter notwithstanding.And he will continue to do so. Even if Yusuf turns up at his house, late one night, in desperate need of Nico's help.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 58
Kudos: 422





	No Other Name But Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fancy_Dragonqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fancy_Dragonqueen/gifts).



Nico was clearing down his work table when the knock came. He paused, furrowing his brow. He glanced at the tall pillar candle, happily burning away. Half past ten. It came again, three soft knocks. One could have mistaken it for the settling of an old building, but he knew better. Nico sighed and waved his hand. He heard the shop door unlock with an audible click.

'To what stupidity do I owe thanks for this visit?' Nico asked loudly, lighting his green and blue candles as he fished his mixing bowl from under the table. The pestle lay drying by the sink and came to him when called. He carefully checked the vials on his shelves but found them undisturbed from this morning. He picked a few herbs for healing and pain relief and lined them up along the bench. 

A cloaked figure slipped inside and shut the door. 'You should be careful opening your door without checking. There could be fey about.' As his guest walked through the shop and into his workroom, there was no flare of warning. Nico's wards lay dormant and the house itself still uncharacteristically quiet. He refused to think too heavily on that. 

'Haven't you heard? The Lord Protector has claimed the barrier stones are guarded at all hours. The people no longer need to fear the fey.' Nico said, pounding yarrow and sage in his pestle. 

‘Merrick is a fool.’

Nico snorted. He held out a mint leaf. 'Chew on this- oh Yusuf!'

His guest had dropped his hood with a lopsided grin. And it was an _especially_ lopsided one due to the swelling of his cheek. Dark bruises were forming under one eye and Yusuf absentmindedly tongued a cut in his lip. A dark smear shadowed his temple and the nearby curls slicked tightly to his head. _Blood_ , Nico realised as the faint scent of copper and spice hit him. The sheen of sweat along Yusuf’s forehead told Nico his friend was in pain, hidden behind his cocky grin.

Nico reached out and gently cupped Yusuf's face without thinking. He turned it towards the window. With a twist of his free hand, Nico drew the moonlight closer to better see the damage, and inhaled sharply in sympathy. Skilled healer’s hands moved almost of their own accord, across the expanse of Yusuf’s raw skin. Small scrapes darted along Yusuf’s cheek and lip, and undoubtedly under his beard as well. A cut through one eyebrow had landed mercifully too far to the left to endanger the eye. Nico drew his thumb along Yusuf’s bottom lip.

‘Who did this Yusuf?’ Nico whispered. He slid so seamlessly into the role of doctor, he hadn't noticed how close they were until he felt Yusuf’s shaky exhale on his cheek. Yusuf’s tongue flicked against the pad of Nico’s thumb. Nico dropped his hand and stepped back. His heart pounded. 

Nico’s eyes found Yusuf’s: beautiful brown eyes, so often filled with laughter and mischief and joy, flashed with something dark. Something wanting. They refused to speak of what transpired between them at last midwinter. They never mentioned the growing tension. To give away one's thoughts and emotions freely was dangerous. Doubly so for them. But Yusuf never hesitated, never hid himself away. Not from Nico.

Nico was terrified to give _this_ a name. Names held power.

'Must you antagonise Merrick?' Nico asked instead. He turned away, pulling down more vials and measuring them out. His hands trembled. Yusuf said nothing.

'It was his Guard Captain Keane this time. Their new guard station is too close to the borderlands. I thought few misplaced tools would merely slow them down and make them rethink their construction. They disagreed.'

Nico hummed. He stirred the mixture with his fingers, whispering spells for health and wellness. He turned to Yusuf and the other man offered his cheek automatically. Years of these clandestine meetings and they spoke in gestures alone: a tilt of the head, a gentle nudge, a quiet shifting of bodies towards one another. Another dance with no name. 

Nico applied the salve to Yusuf’s cheek and bruised eye. The mixture dripped down his beard, over the edge of his lips. Nico tried not to think of licking it off. Yusuf said nothing beyond the occasional hiss as Nico touched a sensitive spot. Nico mumbled his apologies.

'These are not healing as fast as I would expect.' Nico dipped his fingers in the salve with a glare, trying to divine the reason for its failings. 

'They had iron.'

Nico froze, his arm extended between them. The mixture on his hand ran down his wrist and splattered on the floor. The room itself seemed shocked into stillness at Yusuf's words. 'That is forbidden. The mining of iron would… it means…'

'It would mean war. To use iron goes against the Covenant.'

'Merrick would never be so stupid.'

'On my name, they had iron. Do you think I would lie to you?' Yusuf's voice was teasing, but there was an edge to it. An unspoken accusation. Nico felt the words as a physical blow. 

'The fey tell half truths and twist words.' Nico snapped back. The words had barely fallen from his lips before he wished to drag them back in again.

A warm hand wrapped around Nico's still aloft wrist, Yusuf's fingers held against his pulse point. Nico shivered. No years of carefully practiced stillness could save him now. Yusuf could surely feel Nico's heart rate as it thrummed through his body. 

'I'm not asking about all the fey, Nico.' It was a trap and a dirty one at that. It skirted the subjects of which they did not speak. Yusuf was not asking if Nico trusted the fey; he was asking if Nico trusted _him_. 

And the Goddess help him, but Nico did. However, he also knew the game, and he would not be caught out, not again. Truths were earned.

'Why are you here Yusuf?' Much to his own surprise, Nico's voice did not falter.

'Changing the subject? I had wounds in need of healing.' A truth, but not a whole one. Nico could read it in the turn of Yusuf’s mouth and the soft smile that did not crinkle around his eyes.

'You asked if I trusted you. Trust is not earned by telling lies of omission. Why are you here?'

A moment. Two. The soft creak of the floorboards, the whisper of wind along the windowsill.

'The Queen sent me.' Yusuf said through gritted teeth. A truth then, and judging by the effort on Yusuf's face, one not meant to be shared. 

'She does not command me.' Nico said.

'As I reminded her.' Yusuf placated. 'She bid me come anyway. She hoped that seeing me like this would stir you to take sides.'

'To take her side, you mean?' 

'That was her hope. But it's not why I came.' Yusuf said softly. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'Another half truth. If Merrick has broken the Covenant, it will be hard to slip between the worlds. And I- I wanted to see you.'

Nico's heart felt as though it would leap from his chest. _Faeries speak only what they want you to hear_ , Nico’s grandmother had said, time and time again. She showed him the wards to lay to keep their power at bay. She explained the rituals; leave an offering of food, ignore the knocks on his windows and walls at night, and never, ever, let them speak.

Yusuf had given voice and name to his desire. In doing so, he offered some small piece of himself to Nico. The power in that gift lay thick in the air. The house shivered, knocking dust from the top of the high shelves. But still the wards lay silent and still Yusuf stood there, Nico’s salve upon his cheek, blood smeared across his skin, and eyes glowing in the moonlight.

 _You spoke of trust,_ Yusuf's eyes said, _see how I trust you._

It was so simple, barely a movement at all, to slide his wrist from Yusuf’s grasp, to interlock their fingers, and to _pull_. 

The first brush of their mouths was chaste; merely a press of closed lips. The angle was slightly wrong and their noses bumped uncomfortably. Yusuf's lips were warm and slightly chapped. Nico tasted the tang of blood and the sweet honey from the healing salve.

It was perfect.

Nico cupped Yusuf's wounded cheek in his palm. Yusuf was warmth; sunshine, laughter and now stolen kisses. But there, just on the edge of Nico's senses, something felt wrong, like damp earth and the sharp tang of a misfired spell. Nico chased it. _Heal_ , Nico thought as he deepened the kiss. Yusuf moaned into Nico’s mouth. Nico felt the skin under his hand knit back together. 

Nico opened his mouth slightly to lick along the seam of Yusuf's mouth. The cut was gone. Nico deepened this kiss. Yusuf opened for him, allowing Nico to lick into his mouth. They both groaned as their tongues touched. Nico could not banish the memory of the hot, desperate slide of their mouths at midwinter. To know the touch of Yusuf’s skin and to taste him again, Nico felt as though he was in a dream. Nico tangled his hands in the curls at the nape of Yusuf's neck. Yusuf’s hand was a hot brand on Nico’s hip.

They broke for air, foreheads pressed together and their heavy breaths mixing in the small shared space between them. Yusuf’s cloak dropped to the ground with a thump. Yusuf snapped his finger and the ties on Nico’s apron came undone.

‘Cheater.’ Nico said and tugged Yusuf’s tunic up and off. Yusuf shivered as Nico mapped the newly exposed skin with his hands and mouth. Nico fixed Yusuf’s cracked rib with two words whispered against Yusuf’s collar bone. Yusuf groaned. 

‘Stars above, Nico. It feels-’ Yusuf’s words were lost in another groan as Nico brushed a bruise from Yusuf’s skin with his lips, then sucked and bit until a deep bloom of pleasure replaced it. Nico didn’t need to hear it though, he knew. This healing, directly with hands and lips, was shockingly intimate. This was magic in its rawest form: Nico’s thoughts and desires made manifest.

 _He trusts me,_ Nico thought, catching Yusuf’s eyes. More than that, Yusuf looked at Nico as if he hung the moon.

They made their way through the work room and down the darkened corridor. Nico’s shirt ended up flung over a door handle. Yusuf’s trousers disappeared after three words mumbled around lips and teeth and tongue. Nico would regret that in the morning when he had to try four times to recall them but currently his mind was filled only with Yusuf. Yusuf’s hand in his hair, Yusuf’s lips on the shell of his ear, the hard length of Yusuf trapped between their hips. _Yusuf Yusuf Yusuf_.

If doors opened before them and pieces of furniture grated along the floor to get out of their way as they stumbled to Nico’s bedroom, he paid it no mind. Nico was too distracted by the way Yusuf’s stomach muscles danced under his touch. 

Some dark, possessive part of Nico swelled when he finally maneuvered Yusuf backwards onto his small bed. The fey lay unashamedly naked before him, pupils blown so wide his eyes looked black. Nico tugged his own trousers off and then crawled over the other man in order to capture Yusuf's lips once more.

The feel of Yusuf's naked skin along his own from chest to hip was overwhelming. They lay for a moment to catch their breath. Yusuf rubbed their noses together with a laugh. Nico kissed him, languidly and open mouthed. They giggled as hands tickled along ribs, drunk on the sheer, unexpected giddiness of being here, like this.

‘I’ve wanted this for so long. Wanted _you_.’ Yusuf spoke tenderly against Nico’s neck. He rubbed his beard along the sensitive spot on the edge of Nico's jaw and stroked Nico's hair off his brow. 'Nico. _My Nico.'_

Nico leaned back, straddling Yusuf’s thighs. Yusuf whined and reached out for him. Nico placed a placating hand on Yusuf’s chest. Seeing Yusuf needy and wanting beneath him, went straight to Nico's already hard cock. This was _real_ , the unnamed thing between them. Nico pinched Yusuf’s nipple and drank in the other man’s reaction.

‘Nicolò.’ 

‘Hmm?’ Yusuf asked.

‘My name, it’s Nicolò. Nicolò di Genova. If we're going to do this,' Nico waved his hand between them, 'I would want you to use it.'

‘Nicolò.’ Yusuf said, tasting it on his tongue. Yusuf propped himself up on his elbows so he could lean close to Nico’s lips. _‘My Nicolò.'_

The way Yusuf said his name, his real name, made Nico shiver. Yusuf held it in his mouth as if it were something to be treasured and worshipped. It dripped from his lips more warm and sweet than the most expensive nectar. Yusuf whispered the name between soft kisses along Nico's neck. 

Yusuf repeated Nico's name over and over, as if reciting a prayer, when Nico fingered him open slowly. Yusuf was reduced to swears and gasps and _Nicolò_ as Nico slid inside of him. Reducing the normally eloquent fey to nothing more than a trembling wreck beneath him was a heady drug.

Nico finally understood the desperate repetition of _Nicolò_ when his own pleasure crested and he spilled inside Yusuf. Yusuf's name tumbled out his mouth without conscious thought. Nico had said Yusuf's name endless times in the past, for all the years they'd known one another. But saying it now, with the warm heat of Yusuf's body all around him and the taste of his skin on Nico's lips, was different. It felt like a spell. Some dark and potent magic that burned along Nico's skin and settled warmly alongside his heart. 

Words held power and Nicolò, held safe and sated within Yusuf's arms, felt powerful. 

\---

It was many hours later that Nico awoke with Yusuf curled tightly around his back. Nico sighed into Yusuf, luxuriating in the warmth. He was drifting in and out of sleep when felt the change in the house. 

'Dawn is coming.' Nico remarked. Yusuf made a noise into Nico's neck; half groan, half enquiring hum. 'The house is waking up.'

'The house must be mistaken.'

Nico turned in Yusuf's arms so he could press a kiss to the fey's nose. Yusuf opened one eye to glare. 'I feel I must remind you it is ill advised to insult a witch's house when you are inside it.'

'My apologies to the venerable house. I was overwhelmed with the joy of waking to you in my arms and forgot my manners.'

'Overwhelming joy is what we're calling it?' Nico grinned and wriggled his hips against Yusuf's. Yusuf was already half hard and his hands tightened around Nico's waist. Nico's bedroom door flew open with a bang. Nico sighed. 'Yes, we hear you. I should probably get up. I need to check all the wards today. Not one of them so much as flared at you yesterday.'

'They didn't?' Yusuf furrowed his brow. 'I hadn’t noticed.'

Nico shrugged. 'Someone must have scuffed them. And you should hurry before the barrier closes. Your Queen will be expecting your report no doubt.'

'There isn't much to report. Not much I wish to share, at least.' Yusuf had the audacity to wink. Nico smiled back, but felt a sense of worry creep up his spine.

'You know my name now.' Nico kept his voice calm and measured. 

Yusuf's eyes softened. 'I do.'

'Your Queen-'

'Will never know it.' Yusuf promised.

'She could still command you to command me.' Nico fiddled with a loose thread. He did not regret telling Yusuf his name. He remembered how right it felt to hear it in Yusuf's voice and the way Yusuf's name felt right in his. But now, in the fading afterglow of their passion, the rest of the world pressed in on them.

'She couldn't.'

'You cannot promise me that. Queen Andromache holds sway over all fey.'

'I can. I _am._ My Queen cannot command me to give up your name because she no longer holds the highest stake on me. And you know it. Nico I-'

'Yusuf, don't.' Nico flung off the quilt and stood. He would not hear it. He would not give it a name.

Yusuf moved to sit on the edge of the bed. 'Yesterday, I walked past your fey wards. I spoke two truths, the most powerful magic I possess, and the house shook but did not throw me into the street. You must know what that means.'

'That my wards are scuffed and the house is getting senile in it's old age.' Nico tugged his trousers on, ignoring the faint grinding sound from down the hall. He could deal with the House's displeasure later. 

'Nicolò.' Yusuf said with utmost gentleness and awe. 'Nicolò di Genova, you perfectly infuriating witch. I _love_ you, Nicolò. I think I have loved you for decades, centuries, my whole life. The nights are darker when I do not see you, the days bereft of the sun's warmth. Even Faerie seems dull in comparison to the light in your eyes. I have lived countless years, but last night, I glimpsed an eternity worth living. My name is Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Kaysani. I give it freely, with no obligation, to the man I love.'

Nico stood very still. He barely breathed. His eyes stayed glued on the impossible man before him. The stubborn, reckless, beautiful, honest man with a smile that warmed Nico to his very bones. The Fey, with his broken bones and scraped knuckles, who breezed into Nico's life and _stayed_. Who kissed Nico softly and desperately and touched him with a reverence reserved for the divine. Who laid his heart bare, sat on Nico's bed with Grandmother's blue quilt the only thing covering his very naked body.

Yusuf who loved him. 

Of course Nico was helpless to do anything but love him back. 

Windows rattled and the floor creaked. Nico had the distinctly unpleasant feeling of sensing his body shifting, but knowing he physically had not moved. The magical dissonance left him feeling unbalanced. He stumbled, pressing a steadying hand to the wall. 

'Nico.' Nico looked up to find Yusuf now half laying on the bed and propped up on his elbows. 'Did your bed get bigger?' Nico groaned. The bed was double the size it was mere moments ago. Nico could take a hint. 

'Yusuf,' Nico relished the feel of Yusuf's name on his tongue. 'I am not a man of flowery language. I prefer to make my point plainly. It seems that has rubbed off on my house.'

Yusuf's face pinched in confusion. Nico stalked over to him with a growl and pushed him flat against the bed. Realisation dawned in those stunning brown eyes and Yusuf laughed. A great, joyous laugh that shook his whole body.

'My wards let you pass. My house let you stay.' Nico leaned over and pinned Yusuf's wrists.

'And expanded the bed.' 

'And expanded the bed.' Nico agreed. Yusuf lifted his head up in order to touch their foreheads together. 

'You love me?' Yusuf breathed. 

'I love you.' Nico promised. A spell older than either of them, more binding than any Fey magic, and sealed with a kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely due to my shocking reading comprehension. I read the summary for Selena's [lovely fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28280316) and my brain went 'Magical healing hands!' And here we all are.
> 
> Many, many, many thanks to [Imoshen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imoshen/pseuds/Imoshen) for helping grow this little fic and beta reading it. And big hugs to [Turnip](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/FereldenTurnip/pseuds/FereldenTurnip) for giving me some great Fey curse words.
> 
> And, as always, thank you to my discord friends who provide endless support, pets, and hype.
> 
> Find me at [hyper-fixate on tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/hyper-fixate)if you want to say hi!


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